


Time For a Riddle

by elliewrites



Series: The Nightwing Shadow Trilogy [1]
Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Double Lives, F/M, Romance, post TDKR
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliewrites/pseuds/elliewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gotham is still trying to pick up the last of the pieces three years after Bane's takeover. There are still several criminals roaming the streets that escaped from Blackgate all those years ago, but the latest development promises that they won't be out much longer. Because Gotham not only has one new hero, but two. Almost immediately after Batman's supposed demise, Nightwing stepped out of, or rather into the darkness. And he has been joined by a masked lady known simply as Shadow Ghost.<br/>But that isn't the only new partnership blooming in Gotham. John Blake, now a teacher at Gotham High since resigning from the force, has been seen out an about with a lovely physician's assistant named Willow Clark. But they both have dark secrets to keep from each other, and one of them is being haunted by a particularly nasty past. And it won't be long until day and night lives collide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time For a Riddle

Willow Clark’s breath came in short gasps and left her body in a soft white mist that hovered in the air for a few seconds before dispersing. But she wasn’t Willow Clark right now. No, right now, in the dark hours of night and in the crime infested back alleys of Gotham she was known as the Shadow Ghost.  This wasn’t a name she gave herself – she had never put much value on such things – but that is what she had been called by those she hunted. And then once the media had picked it up from them the name stuck.

A victorious smirk had just started to come to her face when her current target stopped trying to get back up. One look at him told her that he was unconscious. But her feeling of triumph vanished when two more men entered the alley. She recognized them from the news, though she couldn’t recall their names. More low-level gangsters, like the man lying before her, which had escaped from Black Gate during the Bane incident three years before. But these two were much larger than the first and she knew she had one hell of a fight ahead of her.

At first the two men appeared afraid. Of course they had heard of Shadow – she was one of Gotham’s new heroes. Shadow Ghost and Nightwing were the talk of Gotham, and something else for the criminals of the city to worry over. But they and many other criminals had wrongly assumed (thanks to erroneous stories in the Gotham Times) that Shadow and Nightwing were working together. So when they saw Shadow Ghost standing there alone – all of 120 pounds and just under 5’5” – they were the ones smirking. They hadn’t expected the talk of Gotham to look like a little girl playing dress-up.

“You lost, sweetheart? A sweet little thing like you shouldn’t be out here all on your own. Someone might get the wrong idea,” the first man said. He was looking at her with a malicious glint in his eye as he and his friend sauntered forward.

“Oh, I think I can take care of myself just fine,” she growled back. Her body automatically began tensing for a fight. “Actually, you’re the one I’m worried about. I hope your new set of teeth won’t be too expensive.”

She waited just long enough to see the look of confusion on his face before pulling her fist back and bringing it forward again in one swift movement, hitting him square in the mouth.

The man stumbled back and pressed his hand firmly over his bleeding lips. He let out a groan. “You’re gon’ ge’ now, bith,” he sputtered before spitting out a mouthful of blood and fragments of teeth onto the pavement. Shadow didn’t need a translator to know what he had been trying to say: _You’re gonna get it now, bitch._ A sentiment she had heard many times before.

 “I’d like to see you try,” she replied. She was about to hit him again when the second man moved behind her and grabbed her arm. Shadow’s eyes widened in surprise. He moved quicker than she had anticipated. But she was still confident she could take them on.

Moving just as quickly as he had, she kicked back hard. She wasn’t one-hundred percent sure where she hit him, but it hurt him enough to make him loosen his grip. Turning on her heel, she faced him and kicked again, this time going higher and hitting his stomach. His breath escaped his body in a loud gust as he fell backwards and hit the alley wall with a smack.

To her dismay, this didn’t knock him out but merely dazed him. And even more unfortunate, this distraction caused her to temporarily forget about his friend. Just as she remembered him an arm snaked around her throat and gripped tightly, cutting off her oxygen supply. She tried to gasp for air and grabbed at the arm, intending to flip the guy. But before she could he moved backwards suddenly – and he would have pulled her with him had his grip not slackened at the last moment. She whirled around to see yet another man. But this wasn’t another criminal.

The man she saw was dressed much like she was – granted his suit seemed much more efficient than hers. Then again, she had to work off a medical assistant’s salary, so this thought didn’t bother her for more than a few seconds. She also noticed this stranger was wearing a mask, very much like the one she donned each night – his being black where hers was a bright purple color.

“Nightwing,” she said with a small grin. She paused to throw her elbow back into the nose of the other man, who had finally snapped out of his daze and was attempting to come after her again. “I’ve seen you in the papers. Rumor is we’re working together. Funny enough that this is the first time we’ve met.”

Nightwing returned the grin. “And they call you the Shadow Ghost. But I think small talk might need to wait. It looks like you could use a hand with these guys.”

“I would be honored,” she said in a dry voice before turning back to her opponent.

Nightwing smirked, hearing the small hint of sarcasm in her tone as he withdrew his two Eskrima sticks – by far his favorite weapon to use. “I’m just trying to help – there’s no rule that says people like us always have to work alone,” he told her as he took on the one he had pulled off her only moments before.

“I suppose that’s a good point,” she replied, grunting slightly as she threw one last punch and her own opponent fell to the pavement, defeated. “An ally could never hurt, especially in a city like this.”

Not long after, Nightwing’s opponent fell as well. He turned to Shadow and they shared a triumphant look. “We should do this again sometime,” he said as Shadow unhooked a loop of rope from her belt and wrangled up the three criminals. The one she had started with was just starting to open his eyes, the other two were still out cold.

“Hey, w’as goin’ on?” the one slurred. He looked blearily at the two heroes as he continued to ramble.

Shadow ignored the man’s blabbering and grinned as she tied the rope around a nearby streetlamp post. “Is this some kind of weird vigilante flirting?”

Nightwing looked a bit taken aback, and if the sun were up she would have been able to see a bit of pink on his cheeks. “Uhm . . . no, ma’am, I didn’t mean that at all. Just that it might be more efficient if we were working together and, uh, seeing as you’re . . . I mean, uh . . .”

Shadow raised an eyebrow at this and gave him a bemused look. “The way I see it, you could be taking that one of two directions. A) You think I can’t handle myself because I’m a girl and that I need you to protect me. Or B) You actually want us to help each other, which I find very odd considering the city we live in. For your sake it’d better be option B or I will kick your ass into next year.”

Nightwing let out a small chuckle. She certainly got right to the point. “Well you’re in luck, it’s B. And I don’t understand what has you so surprised – look at what we both choose to do with our free time. And then there was Batman before us. There is some good left in Gotham, you know, once you clean out some of the dirt.” He gestured to the three tied to the lamp post. The one who had woken up was still looking around like he wasn’t quite sure where he was or what had happened, though he had finally stopped talking. “You may have hit that one a little too hard, Shadow.”

Shadow shrugged. “It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it. Drug dealer, had children running his merchandise.”

Nightwing clenched his jaw, his hand automatically trying to curl into a fist. As if the criminals in the city weren’t bad enough, they had to drag innocent children into their crimes too. He let his mind drift for a moment to his life as John Blake, and where he was now working as a high school teacher. He thought of all the kids there and wondered if any of them had been pulled into those kinds of situations. He was sure some . . . no, most of them probably had been pushed to those things by desperation. He only hoped that his work with them during the day, and Nightwing’s work when the sun went down, would be enough to keep them out of that.

“D’you have a phone on you?” Shadow’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. He looked over at her and she was holding out her hand expectantly.

“Yeah, here,” he grabbed the one from his utility belt and handed it over.

She flipped through it for a moment, nodding in approval when she saw that Jim Gordon’s number was saved. Next she started up the camera feature, taking a picture of the criminals.

_Photo MSG To: J Gordon  
3 dealers for the price of 1. East 54 th street. –SG&NW_

With a satisfied smile she hit send and handed the phone back to Nightwing.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she smiled at him before leaping onto the fire escape of the nearest building.

“Where can I find you?” he called after her before she could reach the roof.

“Same place I’d look for you – wherever the trouble is,” she replied before pulling herself onto the rooftop and walking in the direction of her home.

At six AM Willow’s alarm went off. With a groan she rolled over to look at the clock. Three hours couldn’t be up already, could they? By the time she had reached her apartment it was nearly three, and by the time she actually got to bed it was half-past. And that was early compared to how most nights went for her.

She let out a small sigh before pushing herself out of bed. Like it or not, she had people depending on her 24/7 and she couldn’t afford to let any of them down. She also knew that if she didn’t get up and turn off her alarm it would wake Alana up, and her roommate wasn’t exactly a morning person. She didn’t bother looking in the mirror as she passed it; she knew what she’d see. Dark circles and a giant bird’s nest of tangled red hair. She spritzed the mass of curls with some leave-in conditioner and picked up her brush to begin the agonizing process of working out the knots. She couldn’t help but notice that there were some sections in the back that were still wet from the shower she had taken when she got home. She shook her head and continued working at the tangles.

Once this was done she dared a peek at her reflection. She still looked like hell, and there was a nice bruise on her neck she would have to try and cover, but with her hair looking semi-normal she figured it wasn’t so bad. It certainly wouldn’t raise nearly as many questions as last month’s rib fracture.

She frowned and rubbed at where the fracture had been, and where she was still a bit bruised. That had certainly been fun trying to explain to the doctor – especially since she had to explain it to a doctor that doubled as her employer, one she worked with on a daily basis and knew how to look for signs that she was lying. Dr. Elliot still looked at her like she was hiding something, even a month after the fact.

She let out a sigh and grabbed her make-up, applying it quickly. She glanced at the clock and cursed under her breath. Either the clock was moving too fast, or she was moving much slower than usual. She slapped the rest of the products on, not really paying much attention to whether it looked good or not (she was only using foundation and mascara anyway, so it would be difficult for it to turn out really bad), before changing into her scrubs. That was the one thing she liked about her day job more than her night job. Scrubs were far more comfortable than the leather bodysuit, though the light blue cloth didn’t complement her figure quite as well as the suit did.

She stepped out into her kitchen and once again consulted the time. According to the clock on the microwave it was twenty minutes to seven. She shrugged and decided that was enough time to grab a quick cup of coffee at the deli – which was owned by her grandfather – before heading to the hospital.

As she walked the three blocks to the deli, Willow got the first clues that something was coming. Like she had always done since she began moonlighting as Shadow, she found herself scanning the streets during the day and looking for anything suspicious. On this particular day, she noticed an alarming number of cops (both plainclothes and uniformed) out and about – obviously on duty judging by how on-edge they looked. Something had certainly happened that she had yet to find out about.

“Good morning, Granddad,” she waved to her grandfather as she walked through the door. As she always did she bypassed the line and the counter, stepping behind it to get her coffee herself.

“Morning Willow,” he smiled and kissed her forehead as she hugged him. “When are you going to stop working for that doctor and come back here?” he asked. His tone was joking but Willow could tell by looking at him that he really did miss having her around.

“Don’t tempt me,” Willow grinned, remembering the years in high school and college when she had worked in the deli.

“Well, I thought I might try,” he replied.

She was about to reply when something on the television caught her attention. She turned to look up to where the set was mounted in the corner.

_“The criminals who escaped from Arkham, again, are Edward Nigma and Floyd Lawton. Unfortunately, due to computer tampering, we cannot show you pictures of them at this time – but as soon as images are recovered they will be distributed to the public. Nigma is described as being approximately six-foot-two, one-hundred and eighty pounds, with short brown hair and blue eyes. He is fifty-three years old. Lawton, age twenty-seven, is approximately six-one, one-hundred-seventy-five pounds, with light brown hair and green eyes. Both of these criminals are considered highly dangerous and the police are advising people to be more cautious than usual.”_

Willow bit her lip as she turned away from the television. Her frown deepened when she saw the disturbed look on her grandfather’s face. “Are you okay, Granddad?”

“Sure,” he chuckled but it sounded off. “It wouldn’t be Gotham without a good criminal out and about, would it?”

Willow let out a small humorless laugh and shook her head as she walked out from behind the counter and over to add cream and sugar to her coffee. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the man next to her, stirring his coffee before putting the lid back on the cup. He was definitely cute and . . . and he rung a bell somewhere in her mind. She felt like she had met him before. She looked up at him, her eyebrows pulling together as she thought.

“I’m sorry, but have I met you before?” she finally asked when he noticed her looking.

John Blake raised an eyebrow at the young woman. “I don’t think so,” he answered. Although she seemed familiar to him as well. “But I come here every morning, maybe we’ve just passed each other before,” he went on. Neither was sure if he thought this was the case, or if he was just trying to explain away why they seemed so familiar to each other.

“Well,” she grinned at him before taking a sip of her coffee and starting for the door, waving to her grandfather as she went. “Maybe we’ll pass by each other again soon.”

“Maybe we will,” he chuckled a bit and walked out as well. “My name is John, by the way, John Blake.” He stopped by his car and she stopped as well.

“Willow Clark,” she replied as they shook hands. They both frowned – the names didn’t ring any bells, but both still thought the other looked strangely familiar. Willow sighed and scanned John’s face. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”

“Uhm . . . no, I’m not sure,” he confessed and laughed.

“Well, maybe we should have lunch tomorrow and figure out where we know each other from.” She smirked and pulled a pen out of her purse before handing him her coffee and grabbing his from him. She scrawled her number across the paper sleeve before trading back. “Bye, John Blake.”

Both of them began scolding themselves as soon as they parted ways.

“I just won’t call her,” John told himself as he started his car and began the drive towards the school.

“I just won’t answer his call,” Willow sighed as she neared the train station.


End file.
